Turbine has certainly been a shining example of how well a hybrid subscription model can work for online games. With their successful transformation of Dungeons and Dragons Online and their upcoming change with The Lord of the Rings Online, we expected their chosen model would be something other developers would inevitably consider. In fact, this very model is something Star Trek Online (STO) Executive Producer Daniel Stahl stated in a recent post that he could see the game adopting.

I could easily see STO going into a hybrid model similar to what Lotro is doing. In that model, subscriptions stay as is - but you allow people to play for free but heavily limit what they can do - which in essence creates a robust way to demo the game and then if you want to keep playing, you either pay for every little thing you are interested in, or you subscribe and don't have to worry about it.

Stahl didn't commit the game to any sort of change, but he did say that Turbine has some interesting plans worth taking note of. Could adopting Turbine's hybrid model help STO? Tell us your thoughts on our forums.